


Everything I hold dear (resides in those eyes)

by PardonMyManners



Series: Power Over Me [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriage, Bittersweet Ending, Cheating, Drama, Ever feel like you're writing the same fic over and over again, F/M, Heavy Angst, Jon actually loved Dany, Married Couple, One Shot, Romance, Smut, Unfaithful spouse, but then you're like 'fuck it' and just write the thing anyway, dont read if that sort of thing bugs you I guess, so that makes the relationship complex, some Dany/Jon, well that's what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 19:51:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16793644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PardonMyManners/pseuds/PardonMyManners
Summary: “We’re hardly more than a patchwork of scars, aren’t we?” she asks, unable to hold his gaze for long, not this close, where her own wounds are laid bare. His fingers squeeze hers, rough with use, but warm and comforting all the same.“We’re still here, and that's all that really matters,” he tells her gruffly, firmly, and he’s right. They are here, here when so many others are not, and surely that is worth something.“Yes…” she replies after a long moment of comfortable, but strangely anticipatory silence. “Yes, I suppose it is.”





	Everything I hold dear (resides in those eyes)

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, this is a long one. I kind of feel like this is an updated version of my fic, 'The End, Bitter, and Sweet,' but really, you needn't read that one at all to enjoy this one. Some mention of past abuse in this one, but nothing too graphic. I hope everyone enjoys!
> 
> EDIT: Yikes! Some unhappy customers in the comments section; I’ve updated the tags a bit to hopefully help weed out this fic out for those who aren’t into the whole ‘Jon actually loves Dany, so that makes things complicated’ thing. To expound; I kind of wrote this fic as a response to this past season of GOT and how I think a marriage between Jon/Sansa might realistically pan out if Jon actually does love Dany. Anyway, sorry if people were upset by this dynamic!
> 
> EDIT EDIT: I've deleted several of the more inflammatory comments (or the down right disgusting ones) and will continue to do so if necessary. I certainly should not have had to read them and anyone who enjoyed this fic also shouldn't have to read them. This does not include those comments that criticize the work in a respectful and generally well meaning manner; we're all welcome to our own opinions and I don't begrudge people theirs.

There is a kind of poetic justice in her marrying three different men who did not, or could not love her, Sansa supposes. It’s a thought that is tempered by the bitter sense of irony she’s carefully honed over the years, and it’s a blade that cuts her nearly as often as it cuts others.

Instinctively, she presses a hand to the flat of her stomach as her lady’s maid tightens the laces of her gown; a simple paneled garment in true white, a pack of dire wolves stitched along its hem. She’d made it herself, of course, sitting quietly by the hearth in her room late into the night.

She rarely sleeps anymore.

Another sharp tug of the laces and her ribs creak in protest, but she almost welcomes the discomfort. There are days where she feels nothing at all; nights that blend together until months have passed and she’s hardly noticed. Tonight, however, her bones feel brittle and sharp beneath her skin, like she’s made of little more than dry, hard edges and roughly sketched lines on parchment.

Glancing out the window, she watches as a light snow begins to fall, dusting the courtyard below in a delicate layer of white. Most would consider a snow storm on their wedding day a poor omen, but to Sansa it seems only fitting. She is a Stark, after all, and she’d been born to the cold and snow.

* * *

Jon has always been handsome, she supposes, but he’s taken on a sort of somber regality under the weight of his kingship. He’s never worn the crown easily, she knows, but it has always suited him. He cuts a heroic, almost dashing figure beneath the Heart Tree; dressed in his usual dark leathers and the cloak she’d made for him what felt like a lifetime ago. It moves her a bit, to see him wear it on tonight of all nights. Like a peace offering, held out uncertainly between them.

He is handsome indeed… if one ignores the pain and regret that shines through his eyes as she performs the tedious bridal march for the third time in her life. At least this time she is not afraid.

Sansa has become very good at ignoring that look, the one he’s worn almost perpetually since their engagement was announced.

It isn’t that she doesn’t feel for him, or that she is no longer capable of empathy or warmth, as so many of the common folk and their bannermen believe, it’s only that she knows her pity would change absolutely nothing. His sadness, pain, and regret would do _nothing_ to change what has already come to pass or what duty yet demands of them, and she is long past entertaining pointless emotions and dreams.

Better not to dream at all.

In the end, very few people cared how Sansa felt about any of it. This hadn’t surprised her, not really; they all thought her cold and conniving, and she is, after all, only a woman, and an advantageous marriage is nearly all she can ever really hope for. The war is over, the Night King dead and Cersei burned to ash, yet so little has changed. At least for her.

Reaching the end of the lit path, she steps fully into the little clearing and glances at Daenerys Targaryen, the Dragon Queen, regal and imposing in her gown of black and red that is all sharp angles as she stands front and center of the gathered throng. The other woman meets her eyes without hesitation, but her stoic gaze reveals almost nothing. Sansa wonders, not for the first time, how long they will let her rule without a husband. It will not be long, she is sure, no matter what Daenerys hopes.

After the war, everyone had assumed she’d marry Jon, a united Targaryen dynasty. She’d shocked them all when she’d announced, not long after they’d returned to Winterfell, that not only was she allowing the North to remain free, but that Jon, her beloved nephew, would be marrying his cousin, Sansa of House Stark.

Sansa is perhaps the only person who had not been shocked by these pronouncements, not only because they’d discussed the matter prior to the official announcement –Jon never would have agreed to the marriage if Sansa had not; his honor would never have allowed it- but because she knew Daenerys better than perhaps anyone. Within the Dragon Queen, resided a dark and bitter kindred spirit.

Oh yes, they understood one another, but similarity can not breech all divides, and at the heart of it all... Sansa is marrying the man Daenerys Targaryen loves.

It is no great secret that the Dragon Queen has never wanted to share a throne, least of all with a nephew whose claim to the Iron Throne is stronger than her own. Not even if she loves him. Sansa personally blames her for none of these things. In fact, Sansa quietly admires her, and has often been envious of her; her freedom and sovereignty, no matter how fleeting it might be, is something Sansa has never experienced. Had their places been exchanged, Sansa is almost certain she would do the same.

It is a clever game, too; Jon is a Targaryen, no matter that he looks like a Stark, and Daenerys is the Queen of his heart if nothing else. Keeping him on the frozen Northern throne is little more than an extension of her own kingdom, a way to bind it to her will while keeping Jon and his parentage at bay. For now, at least. In truth, Sansa suspects that Daenerys is merely tired of fighting, and the prospect of another war is, for the time being, an unpleasant one. The Dragon Queen trusts Jon as she has never trusted another, that is also no secret, and with him she will leash Sansa and any lingering resentment the Northerners might harbor.

And so Sansa plays her part in breaking what is left of Jon’s battered heart, thus protecting the continued sovereignty of her people.

The wedding ceremony is quick; quicker, indeed, than any of her others.

She hardly feels Jon’s hand in hers as he leads her to kneel before the tree, hardly feels the brotherly brush of his lips across her frozen cheek when he promises to care for and honor her, and hardly hears the genuine cheers from the gathered crowd of Northern Lords and vassals as they emerge from the wood as man and wife.

She feels almost nothing at all, not even the cold.

Somewhere inside herself, she’s built a wall. She’d laid the first bloody brick the day her father’s head rolled across the cobblestones of King’s Landing. It towers above her now, a fortress built of pain and betrayal, and nothing can reach her through it, not anymore.

When Jon trembles beside her with grief, eyes swimming with tears he does not shed, she feels only bitterness. Everything she’s ever wanted or loved has been stripped from her, taken through violence and cruelty, and no one has ever offered her a shred of true comfort. She finds that she has none now to give.

* * *

The wedding feast is more boisterous and lively than Sansa anticipated, and she catches herself smiling on more than one occasion as couples laugh and dance to lively Northern reels that she once would have found boorish and distasteful. It all makes her miss her mother fiercely; makes her miss them all, in truth.

Catelyn Stark would not have approved of any of her husbands, and certainly not of Jon, no matter that he is a cousin now instead of a bastard usurper. Despite all that, though, Jon is...kind, and honorable, and he would never hurt her. These things would have pleased her mother, she is certain, after everything she has suffered. Some distant, broken part of herself grieves over such simple standards for a husband. She’d once dreamed of much, much more, but the world has taught her the true value of kindness, no matter how simple. For this alone, she will be grateful.

Across the hall, the Dragon Queen resides on another raised dais, surrounded by her own vassals and sycophants. She has hardly spared a single glance for she or Jon, a hollow smile that Sansa recognizes all too well frozen on her beautiful face. The smile loses some of its sharpness when Tyrion leans toward her and makes some remark. The Imp had tried to conceal his relief at Jon and Sansa’s marriage, but Sansa, who knew him better than most, had seen it glimmering in the shadows of his eyes.

Sansa glances about the room and finds that even Arya, who’s been nearly as somber and brooding as Jon since their marriage had been announced, seems in good spirits. Sansa knows it has more to do with the handsome blacksmith at her side than anything else. Arya had not been pleased at the prospect of Jon and Sansa marrying, but she preferred Sansa to Daenerys and so had kept most of her complaints to herself. 

Sansa smiles into her wine glass as Arya laughs at something Gendry whispers into her ear. Jon must catch the motion because he turns toward her and asks, “What is it?” He is making a concentrated effort to engage her, she knows; he’s learned something of the importance of appearances since taking the throne.

Sansa allows the smile to linger on her face as she inclines her head to where Arya and Gendry sit talking quietly, heads close together, oblivious to the world. “Gendry thinks we will say no if he requests her hand.”

Jon’s brow furrows as he glances toward the two. “I confess I’ve been waiting for it. The Qu-Daenerys... has given him the Stormlands, if he wants them.”

Sansa arches a brow and considers for a moment. She knew this of course, knew it without being told; it was predictable, but it bothers her that she’d not previously been privy to this bit of knowledge, at least not officially. “He is afraid Arya will not want him if he is a Lord,” she says, eyes sweeping across the room. She’d spent very little time with Gendry Waters, Robert Baratheon’s bastard son, but she knows Arya well enough.

“Would she?”

Sansa takes another sip of wine, her smile turning to one of perpetual geniality on her face. “I do not know,” she admits, “You know how she feels about being a Lady. But... I think he fears that we will not believe he is a good enough match, him being a bastard, Lord or no.”

Jon gives her a sharp look. “That’s a bit ironic, considering.”

Sansa lifts her shoulders slightly. “It’s not your approval he worries after.”

He considers this for a moment, drinking deeply from his own goblet. She’d ordered his favorite ale for the night, knowing he disliked wine, and he’d drained at least four mugs. His hair is slipping free of its tie and she has to resist the urge to smooth a curl back and away from his face. She doesn't like to see him disheveled, it ruins a sort of tentative separation she’s created for him in her mind.

“You would deny him then?” he asks at last, voice pitched low as he tries to conceal his condemnation of her. He is no good at hiding his thoughts, least of all from her. Tonight his judgment stings more than usual, however. He still understands her so little, she thinks sullenly, even after the several long years of war and strife that had brought them closer together than they had ever been as children.

 _Can you blame him?_ A quiet voice asks from deep within her breast. _When you let him see so little of you?_

She surprises herself by scoffing. It is not a ladylike sound; it is a brittle and harsh, burning as it leaves her throat. “Arya can marry whoever she wishes, my approval hardly matters to her. But no, I would not deny him _-them_. Not everyone need marry only for political advantage.” Arya could have been a vital resource, had she been a different sort of girl, and if Sansa were a different sort of woman. She would not sell her sister off like chattel, no matter how beneficial it might be. Besides, Arya had long since proven she could and would do as she wished.

Jon’s gaze locks on her fully for the first time that night, a hint of surprise in his dark eyes, and it echoes her own. She is not normally so… open, not with him or anyone else, not anymore, and she looks down at her wine glass, realizing belatedly that it is unwatered and she has eaten very little of her meal.

“Only you must?” He queries, voice carefully impassive, but it is not truly a question. They both know the answer, and not for the first time since they’d found each other again, his eyes fill with pity. She does not want his pity. She has no use for it.

“And you, it seems” she replies, looking away, and her tone is perhaps harsher than necessary, but his pity pricks at her normally impenetrable pride.

Silence extends between them, heavy with the months of unspoken words and the lonely mountains of their individual traumas looming above them. She stubbornly refuses to meet his eye, though she can feel the press of his gaze. She is afraid of what her face might accidentally reveal. Afraid of the truth that might be written there, between the furrows of her brow.

Moments later the bedding is called for, bringing with it a strange sort of relief, and they are each whisked away, caught once more in a tide of events neither of them can fight.

* * *

Jon does not touch her on their wedding night, nor any night after. She had not expected him to. He is not the sort to bed an unwilling woman, no matter what duty might demand; it is one of several reasons Sansa had agreed to the match in the first place.

Daenerys lingers for a month after the wedding, as lines are drawn on maps and plans and treaties are made. Sansa is present for all of these meetings, but she allows Jon to take the reins, pretending not to notice as their hands linger over parchment or when they stand closer than prudence might allow.

Their eyes linger nearly as often as their hands, filled with poignant and terrible longing, and Sansa turns a blind eye to that, too.

On many of those first nights, Jon does not come to their bed at all, and she does not need to guess where he sleeps. She doesn't begrudge him such moments, as she knows they are cursory, even if the servants mutter and the Lords grumble. She thinks of it as her gift to him, for letting her keep her home and her throne and her people.

Jon is naïve and foolish and dangerously honorable, but he is also good and kind and has saved them all in more ways than one and he deserves whatever happiness he can pull from the cold, dead earth, no matter how fleeting. She will not deny him that, not when she herself is incapable of offering any man warmth, let alone her former bastard brother. 

She hears from the servants that, on the night the Dragon Queen leaves with her entourage to return South, the King in the North goes into Winter Town and gets roaring drunk. This too, she indulges, though she might not have if such behavior had continued, but Jon is far too noble to fall into drunkenness and lethargy, and he returns to her bed the very next night, though a shadow lingers in his eyes for several moons after. They barely speak to one another, those first few weeks.

In truth, she can hardly bear to look at him.

As the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months, however, they do grow used to, if not comfortable, with sharing a bed. With sharing a _life_. Sansa doesn’t mind his distance, in truth she is grateful for it. She has no desire to be bedded by him or any other man.

There is the matter of an heir, however, but Sansa cannot bring herself to broach the subject with him, though she can feel it building and growing between them as the months pass. It will not be long before the court starts whispering, before the Lords start making demands.

It does not matter that she’d thought him her brother all her life. As a young and spoiled girl, a bastard half-brother had hardly seemed like any relation at all, but for all her bravery and wisdom, born of tears and blood and loss, she knows very little of what goes on between a man and a woman beyond pain and terror. That, at least, she might have understood; for whatever tenderness may exist between a husband and his wife beneath the bed covers of marriage is utterly lost to her.

And so they exists in a strange counterbalance to one another, only rarely sharing an orbit as they go about their duties. Jon is often away, seeing to the various rebuilding efforts across the North, while Sansa manages the affairs of Winterfell and sees to the problems of the small folk and lesser vassals in his absence. In their mutual loneliness, they grow almost comfortable.

* * *

Six months after their wedding, Gendry finally seeks Jon out. 

“The King requests your presence, Your Grace,” Brienne announces quietly from the doorway of Sansa’s solar. She nods slowly and sets her stitching aside, immediately concerned. Jon rarely calls upon her unless the news is dire.

Jon and Gendry Baratheon are waiting for her in what had once been her father’s study; a faint twinge of memory flits across her heart as she steps into the room before she shoves it away. Eddard Stark is dead and it does no good to summon his ghost every time she steps foot into one room or another. 

Gendry is still on his knees at Jon’s feet and she and Jon share a rare smile over his bowed head. There is a warmth in her husband’s eyes to which she is not accustomed, and it warms her heart a bit in turn. He is undeniably handsome when he smiles.

“Up man,” Jon insists, his voice kind, and he reaches down to haul the other man to his feet. “You needn’t grovel, we’ve been wondering when you’d get around to asking.”

Gendry looks well in a fine tunic of deep blue and supple black trousers, his shoulders broad beneath the fall of his cloak and his eyes bright beneath the fringe of his hair. Sansa wonders if Robert Baratheon had ever been this handsome.

Gendry spares Sansa an uneasy glance as she comes to stand at Jon’s side, but he manages a sheepish smile and his cheeks tinge red. He has ridden hard from the Stormlands, he tells them, having seen to the necessities of his new holdings, and has come to ask for Lady Arya Stark’s hand in marriage. Arya had been a petulant wreck since he’d left, and only Jon could withstand her scathing displeasure, so Sansa is relieved he has returned in more ways than one. 

“Of course we grant our blessing,” Sansa says before Jon can speak, startling both men. It's rather gratifying. 

“Thank you, Your Gra-” Gendry begins before Sansa raises her hand with a slight smirk.

“But I believe she will take some convincing.”

In truth, it takes nearly two months of their combined pestering and encouragement before the announcement is finally made and ravens are sent out with the happy news. Arya pointedly refuses a grand wedding and instead chooses to marry during the harvest festival the small folk celebrate each year. Sansa only barely manages to convince her to at least wear a gown.

* * *

“You look beautiful, Arya,” Sansa says as she pins back another braid, fumbling a bit with a few of the shorter strands as she tucks them securely away. She wishes her sister would at least let her cut her hair so it wouldn’t be so uneven and rough. It is a pretty color though, like dark smoke in murky water, and feather soft as Sansa lets the loose strands slip through her fingers.

Arya grunts and sighs. “I haven’t worn a dress in years. I forgot how utterly awful they are. I don’t know how you stand it.”

Sansa chuckles and settles a crown of berries and leaves on her sister’s head before turning her around to adjust it evenly across her brow. She almost laughs again at the petulant look on Arya’s face and surprises them both by stooping to kiss her cheek. She truly does look lovely; like Lyanna Stark, fierce and beautiful like a dire wolf.

“Our mother and father would be proud of you, Arya,” she says and Arya flushes even as her expression sours.

“Not… of everything.”

Sansa feels her heart swell a bit, and realizes, for the first time, that Arya will be leaving them again. It pangs her to think of it, of being alone with Bran and Jon once more -two former brothers who are no longer so. They hardly even see Bran anymore; he’s always tucked away behind some book and rarely even leaves his rooms, and when he does, he is merely a stranger wrapped in her brother’s skin.

Sansa tilts her sister’s chin up gently with the knuckles of her hand. “Of everything that matters,” she insists.

Arya lets out an uncomfortable scoff, and smooths her hands over the front of the fine gray gown that is the exact color of her eyes. Sansa had started working on the dress the very night Gendry had arrived to ask for her hand. She’d even crafted the slim leather sword belt -a compromise to the gown- embroidering it with lovely silver vines. Needle hangs there, from her hip, freshly polished, and even Sansa has to admit it is a fine and fitting addition.

Her little sister, the warrior, she thinks with fondness. 

Arya draws in a sharp breath, awkwardly lifting the folds of her gown, and says, “Well, let's get this nonsense over with.”

They celebrate with the small folk after the ceremony.

Winter Town is beautifully decorated with the fruits and labors of the season; painted gourds and colorful leaves strung on twine from homes and fences, bushels of late blooming flowers hung from lantern posts, and stacks of grain decorated with bright ribbon lining the roads, all of it leading to a massive bonfire at the town’s centre. Special chairs are raised on a simple wooden dias for she and Jon, and Sansa is surprised by the lightness she feels as they settle in to observe the festivities. Surprised by how much she enjoys the simple pleasure that radiates from the awed people surrounding them, Lords and peasants alike, as they dance and laugh around the fire to a lively tune carried by pair of fiddles and a single flute.

Arya and Gendry whisk by, laughing as Arya clutches her wedding crown to her head, and she throws Sansa and Jon a small wave that Sansa returns with a bright laugh. Her body vibrates with life, with a sense that this, _this_ moment is something precious, something to hold onto. That this is the moment they had all suffered and fought for.

Jon shocks her then by touching her arm and leaning close. She can feel his breath on her neck, warm and slightly damp. “You look beautiful tonight, Sansa,” he tells her, “like something out of a song.”

She flushes and pulls back a little to study his face, wondering if he’s been into his cups. But his eyes are clear, if a little uncertain, and his smile is kind and friendly beneath his trimmed beard. She touches the crown of twigs and leaves on her head that she’d fashioned for herself self-consciously. She wears a simple gown of warm, autumn yellow with a red sash to match her hair -hardly her finest garments, but then Jon has always appreciated simple things. She feels young in that moment, like a specter of the girl she’d once been, before the world had robbed her of innocence and joy; like the sort of girl who might have melted at receiving such a compliment from a handsome man.

“Thank you…” she says, and might have said more if Lord Davos hadn’t appeared in that moment and insisted he teach her a few of the dances.

She agrees, more to escape the strange new pressure of Jon’s presence than anything else, but soon finds that she is enjoying herself, laughing and twirling as Davos patiently teaches her the steps. Her people cheer for her as she weaves between them. She catches hold of Arya’s hand at one point and her heart feels lighter than it has in years. Since the day she’d left Winterfell, in truth.

Lighter, that is, until she lifts her head to find that Jon is watching her, something new and vaguely terrifying reflected in the firelight of his eyes.

* * *

She cannot pinpoint the precise moment or occurrence that sparks a change between them, but something indeed begins to shift, making room for something new and tentative to grow.

Perhaps it begins when she starts personally mending his shirts and tunics, even embroidering little vines of leaves along the sleeves and collars when the mood strikes her. Or perhaps it starts when she takes to meeting him at the gates when he returns home from visiting their banner-men or the Wall, greeting him with a deep curtsey and a bright smile that she finds she no longer has to fake quite so often. Or maybe it’s after he takes to inviting her to his study at night so they might review the ledgers, his eyes clear and intent as he listens to, and often heeds her advice. Perhaps it is all of these things, or perhaps it is merely that two people can only exist so close yet so far apart for so long before something inevitably draws them closer.

He smiles at her more, often over meals, or during petitions, and she finds herself seeking him out during the day to ask his advice over one household matter or another, enjoying the way he listens carefully before responding, as if no matter is beneath his time or notice. He in turn comes to her with marriage treaties between the various Northern houses and other minor disputes, speaking to her of the day’s events as his feet warm by the fire, his tunic unclasped at the neck as he relaxes in their chambers. The dark hairs that dust the skin below his collarbone shine in the firelight, drawing her attention more often than she likes.

A friendly sort of companionship grows between them and fine cracks begin to form in the frozen walls of her heart, almost without her noticing.

One night, Sansa lies awake in their bed and stares at Jon’s back, watching the shadows of the low burning hearth dance across the raised and puckered scars that peak over the loose collar of his nightshirt. It’s odd, she thinks, how she could share a bed with a man for near on a year and yet know so little about him. To make matters worse, they’d grown up together, and somehow they’d still ended up as near strangers.

Perhaps, she muses, it is time to make a new beginning.

Sansa can tell by his breathing that he is still awake, they have not been abed long, and she bites her lip for a moment, summoning a bit of courage before reaching out and brushing a finger along one pinkish line that starts at the tip of a shoulder blade and dips down toward the other. He tenses beneath her touch but does not turn or move away.

“This one,” she murmurs, wetting her lips. “How did you get this one?”

His head angles toward her slightly, so that she catches the faint gleam of his eyes, like fire in deep, dark water.

“A wright, I think, though it’s hard to keep track,” there’s a hint of humor in his voice, but its faint and laden down with remembered pain and terror.

She drags her finger up to a puckered spot on his shoulder, wondering if she only imagines that he shivers beneath her touch. “And this one?”

He turns over fully then, startling her a bit as she retracts her hand, but he catches it in his, pressing it down into the bed between them. There is only a little space between them now, and her heart trembles slightly in her breast.

“An arrow,” he tells her, his eyes studying her in the dim light. There’s a story there, one that pains him, so she pushes no further.

His hair is unbound and the pretty curls fall across his forehead and eyes. She wonders absently what the strands might feel like, sliding between her fingers. 

“We’re hardly more than a patchwork of scars, aren’t we?” she asks, unable to hold his gaze for long, not this close, where her own wounds are laid bare. His fingers squeeze hers, rough with use, but warm and comforting all the same.

“We’re still here, and that’s all that really matters,” he tells her gruffly, firmly, and he’s right. They are here, here when so many others are not, and surely that is worth something.

“Yes…” she replies after a long moment of comfortable, but strangely anticipatory silence. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

They fall asleep like that, turned toward one another, hands clenched between them.

* * *

Then, nearly a year into their marriage, Gilly, Sam’s… _companion_ , becomes pregnant. Sansa is startled by the twang of jealousy that accompanies the announcement. Flashes of old dreams come back to her; dreams of children, of a loving home, of a husband who cares for her. She offers a cheery congratulations, smiling as she should, but she can feel Jon’s eyes following her as she quickly excuses herself and nearly runs from the room.

She spends the rest of the day in the Glass Gardens, tending to plants and flowers, hiding a few traitorous tears in the sleeve of her gown before they can escape down her cheeks.

Jon enters their room that night and Sansa knows immediately that something has changed. Something important. It’s there in the set of his jaw and in the clench of his hands at his sides. 

“You… deserve to be a mother Sansa,” he says with very little preamble. He is wearing the face he wears only when he speaks as a King and not as her husband. The expression softens quickly, however, and she can read the uncertainty in the slump of his shoulders. “I don’t give a damn about our duty or what the Lords expect… but I do care for your happiness,” he says and her heart leaps into her throat.

She hadn’t realized how much she desired it, motherhood, until he’d given it a voice.

“If… if you can bear it,” he continues, voice wavering ever so slightly. “I would… I would like to give you that at least.”

Her breast tightens with joy and terror and it takes her a long moment before she can master her emotions well enough to respond. “I...I can bear it.”

And bear it she does.

Jon is...gentle with her. Endlessly patient and kind, as he comes to her night after night, but still she is afraid, horribly so, and the terror is far closer to the surface than she might have believed. He uses a sweet smelling oil to keep from harming her when he takes her, and he never fully disrobes and Sansa only ever lifts her nightgown high enough that he might slip between her thighs. The oil makes the whole process far more bearable, almost pleasant sometimes, as he leans over her, head turned away, his hot breath ghosting across her collarbone. He smells nice, like leather and smoke with a hint of sweat and ale, and she doesn't mind his nearness, not if it will bring her the babe she longs for. He touches her only so much as necessary, speaking to her only to tell her to shift a bit to the side or lift her hips just a little. In all, it is more than she had ever hoped for.

Within three moon’s turnings she finds her waist thickening, and Sam confirms it, congratulating her with a bright and honest smile, and something inside her is reborn.

Jon finds her sobbing in their chambers, clutching a tiny little garment to her chest. Her own mother had made it for Sansa when she was a babe, now it will warm her grandchild, and it’s all so bittersweet that she almost can’t stand it. Jon says nothing, at first, and only gathers her into his arms, hand smoothing over her hair.

“I thought, you would be happy,” he murmurs, and she pulls back with a shake of her head.

“I _am_ happy,” she says with a sharp laugh that almost hurts, tears still slipping from beneath her lashes like the first cracks in a crumbling dam. “I’m happier than I ever thought I could be again.”

He shakes his head as if he doesn’t understand, but a smile breaks like the dawn across his features and he presses a firm kiss to her brow.

“You will be a wonderful mother, Sansa,” he says and she prays that he is right.

* * *

Pregnancy, Sansa finds, is another kind of sacrifice.

The nausea is intense for a time. She can barely stomach the smell of food let alone eat any of it, but the symptoms pass within a week and she feels a bit more like herself. By then, however, she is full of a wild energy that she cannot seem to expend, keeping her up at night and making her endlessly restless.

Jon seems to find her antics amusing, and he is more often at her side, helping her to lift her embroidery basket or taking short walks with her around the grounds as Sam suggests. It's a bit awkward, at first, this new connection between them, but soon she realizes that Jon is nearly as excited as she is at the prospect of parenthood and things grow a bit easier.

 _You will be a wonderful father, Jon_ , she almost tells him one afternoon as they stroll through the gardens, before recalling that, far to the South, there is a woman whom he truly loves, and that all of this must be just as bittersweet for him as it is for her.

He never speaks of it, of _her_ , and Sansa is too much a coward to ever broach it. But Daenerys is there between them in those moments, another ghost haunting their steps.

For the first time in all of her marriages, she wishes she could, for once, be her husband’s first choice, if only for a moment.

_I have taken so much from him already, what right have I to ask for more?_

* * *

Her time grows ever nearer and she lies awake one night, utterly unable to fall asleep, staring up at the ceiling as moonlight paints it in swaths of silver. She holds her rounded stomach between her hands, cradling the child within, a smile flashing across her face as the babe shifts, some knobbly bit pressing against her fingers. It is such a strange thing, being two people at once, she thinks. Strange, too, to think that no man alive could understand such a sensation, such a sense of duality. And she had learned long ago that it is in the nature of men to fear what they cannot understand.

“May I?” Jon asks suddenly from the darkness, startling her. She had not thought him awake. It is well into the night, but he has turned to face her, his expression difficult to read in the faint light.

She smiles, however, and takes his hand, pressing it low on her belly where she feels their child move most often. He doesn’t have to wait long, and she feels him jerk in surprise when a sharp kick connects with his palm.

“Gods, does that hurt?” he asks and she laughs despite herself.

“Only when aimed at my ribs,” she says and it is his turn to laugh, a warm and quiet sound that she finds herself wishing she heard more often. They need more laughter. They need it to drive out all the ghosts that linger in nearly every room, round every corner. A child will help that, she thinks. A child will brings some light back to Winterfell.

“Are you frightened?” he asks after a comfortable stretch of silence, hand still resting beneath hers, cupping their babe. His touch makes her feel safe, less alone.

She considers this for a moment and sighs. “Perhaps a little… but, well, I figure I have endured worse.”

His fingers flex against her stomach. “I would not have you suffer more.”

On impulse, she threads her fingers through his. “At least this suffering ends with a gift.”

“Aye,” he says after a moment, and she can hear the smile in his voice. “I suppose it does.”

* * *

The birth of their son, Robb, softens things between them, creating a fragile but distinct cord of intimacy that connects them in new, and unexpected ways.

Jon takes to fatherhood as only a bastard can, with uninhibited joy and painfully humble enthusiasm. Her own father had not been so involved in caring for his children, Sansa is certain. Jon often changes their son’s soiled garments, or pats his small back to help relieve him after he’s finished feeding at Sansa’s breast. All the while he smiles and coos at their babe, the softest smile on his face. Smiles that make him look years younger, giving Sansa a glimpse of the man he might have been had the world had been a kinder, gentler place. 

Many nights Jon rolls from their bed and rushes into the adjoining nursery, scooping their crying son from the startled nursemaid’s arms. Robb calms almost immediately, which is something that makes Sansa just a tiny bit jealous, but it is a fleeting thing. To see Jon’s dark head bent over their son’s is such a sweet, and utterly unexpected joy that nearly everything thing else fades away. It half terrifies her, and dark whispers slither and coil around her heart.

_He may love his son, but he will forever wish he had a different mother._

* * *

Jon kisses her, for the first time, almost as an afterthought.

He is asked to come to the Wall and survey the repairs three months after Robb’s birth, and Sansa helps him to prepare for the journey. She packs his warmest garments, tucking a new wool tunic into his pack as a gift, and finds she is sorry indeed to see him go. She has grown used to him beside her in their bed. On some nights, she almost misses him above her, almost misses him moving inside her. Sometimes she cannot sleep for the sweet and burning ache between her thighs that she is helpless to remedy. She thinks Jon could help her, but she cannot find the words or the courage to ask.

They are standing at the hearth in their chambers moments before he must depart, and she is muttering a rather despondent farewell when he leans in and presses his lips to hers.

She knows at once that he’d not meant to do it. He stiffens and pulls quickly away, not meeting her eyes. Like a virginal girl she presses two fingers to her suddenly inflamed lips as a bolt of heat shoots down her spine. She’s never felt anything quite like it, and it is both frightening and somehow… wonderful all at once.

“Sansa,” he croaks, “I-I’m sorry, I don’t-“ She takes a step toward him, bravely claiming the distance between them, and presses her lips to his once more.

It is more an experiment than anything else, to see if she can’t recreate that pleasant sense of burning, to see what other sensations he might invoke from within her. He is still and frozen for a long, awkward moment before he finally relents, tentative arms reaching for her, holding her as though he thinks she might shatter. After a moment of soft, delicate contact, he lifts a hand and adjusts the angle of her head, deepening the kiss, and blood rushes in her ears like ocean waves on stone.

His tongue presses between her slackened lips and her knees almost instantly buckle beneath her. Jon catches her with an arm about her waist as their lips break apart, and utters a single startled laugh that warms her down to her toes, despite her embarrassment.

She clutches at his shoulders, her heart thundering in her breast, as he presses his brow to hers and closes his eyes. She takes this moment to study the dark splay of his lashes, as pretty as a girl’s, and the scar that cuts across his brow that gives that prettiness a sharper edge. Her gaze shifts to his lips, which are plush and full.

She wants to kiss him again, she realizes, and this frightens her enough to straighten and step a little away. The uncertain smile he offers her reminds her of when he was a boy, always so unsure of himself, of his place in the world. It makes her heart ache to see it.

“R-Ride safe, Jon,” she says, wanting to say more, but not at all certain how to form the words. In truth, she wants him to leave now, to give her space to define whatever it is he’s woken inside her.

Jon nods slightly, opening his mouth as though to speak before turning abruptly on his heel and leaving the room.

“Come back to me,” she says to the sudden emptiness he leaves behind. "Come home."

* * *

He is gone for over three months, and she is waiting at the gates with Robb in her arms when he returns.

Her son has been something of a terror without his father, and that alone is a relief enough, but she is motivated by more selfish desires, even if she refuses to give them a name. She’s nearly convinced herself that the kiss between them had been nothing more than a moment’s weakness. The smile he gives her as he dismounts, however, while weary about the edges, is so warm and welcoming she can’t help but flush at the sudden memory of his tongue sweeping across her lips. 

She gives a small curtsey, balancing the growing weight of their son on her hip. “Your Grace,” she says, feeling feverish, as though she might leap out of her own skin at any moment. She can feel the eyes of the men gathered, can sense their secret smiles and their less secretive curiosity.

Jon chuckles, as if she’s made some joke, and plucks their son from her arms. He surprises her then her by pressing a dry, but warm kiss to her cheek. “My Queen,” he says as though this is another joke, one between them alone. There’s a tension between them, a humming chord that has her breath catching at the back of her throat in response to his nearness.

Robb tugs on one of Jon’s curls and coos, making them both chuckle, and Sansa wonders if she only imagines the breathless quality of Jon’s voice. Something has changed between them again, she realizes as they turn toward the keep, only this time she doesn’t have to guess at its source.

* * *

Three weeks later, they travel south to celebrate Lord Cerwyn’s marriage to one of Lord Manderly’s daughters. They leave little Robb behind and Jon must sense her unease because he rides with her in the carriage for most of the three day journey, holding her hand and talking with her.

The wedding is a lovely affair, and Lord Cerwyn and Lady Manderly all but trip over themselves to shower she and Jon with every comfort. It’s actually a bit refreshing, she thinks, to be free of her infant son’s demands and the endless call of her everyday responsibilities, even if only for a few days.

She’d chosen a special gown for the occasion; thinking of only one person, one man, when she’d packed it carefully away. It is a silk gown in deep blue, its neckline lower than the warmer, simpler gowns she wears at home, and it clings to curves that have ripened since the birth her son. The feel of it against her skin makes her feel bold, almost sensual.

Jon has not kissed her again, but he _has_ taken to touching her. Just little things, of course: a hand at her elbow on the steps down to the hall, or at her waist as they enter or leave a room. Sometimes, at night, she thinks she feels him brush the hair from her face as she sleeps, but this may be little more than wishful thinking. Still, something has begun to build, a new kind of tension that is both sweet and somehow frustrating, making her more aware of his presence beside her in their bed; aware of every shift, every breath, every lingering look. 

Prior to the wedding feast, Jon waits for her in the antechamber of their rooms, and the heat in his eyes when she enters makes her knees weak and her hands tremble. Many men have looked at her in such a way, but it has only ever frightened her, never excited her. Other men might have told her that she’s beautiful in that moment, they might have waxed poetic on the color of her hair, or the blue of her eyes, but Jon has always been a man of few words and she has long since learned that such compliments are often barbed with poison. No, she can see the truth of it there, in the depths of his gaze, in the curve of his brow, in the set of his jaw and the line of his shoulders. He does not need words.

He looks fine as well in a dark gray tunic with threads of silver along the sleeves and collar, the crown of iron spires he so rarely wears settled upon his brow. His cheeks color a bit as he clears his throat and he fumbles something from the pocket of his trousers. It’s a necklace, a simple but lovely thing; a winter rose coiled around a gleaming sapphire.

“A gift,” he says, holding it out to her, and she chuckles, feeling lighter than air.

“And for what reason do I warrant such a present?” she asks, stepping toward him to accept it, letting the cool, silver chain slide across her palm. It’s truly is a lovely trinket, and she wonders if he had it specially made for her. The thought makes her feel flushed and giddy.

“Do I need a reason?” he asks, voice still pitched deep, but there is a tinge of defensiveness leaking in at the edges and his eyes take on a slightly guarded look.

Sansa realizes then that he has likely never given a woman a gift before and takes pity on him, undoing the clasp and twisting it shut again at the nape of her neck. It’s cool against her breast, but warms quickly to her skin. His eyes linger there for a moment and she licks her lips, heat pooling between her thighs, thinking again of his tongue and other places he might put it to use.

“It’s perfect, Jon,” she tells him with a smile that feels almost foreign on her face. “Truly.”

His eyes lift, and he looks perhaps a bit embarrassed, but he seems pleased and carefully takes her arm in his.

“I’m glad,” he says with another boyish smile that does something foolish to her heart, and leads her out into the hall.

* * *

Sansa dances with nearly all the Lords present, and she can feel Jon’s eyes watching her all the while, heavy and hot like the sun. They trace her movements through the hall, often over the brim of his goblet, and she can tell he is barely engaged in the conversations around him. It makes her feel powerful, daring even, and she dances with a careless abandon that she has not dared since she was a girl.

She does not expect him to dance, he’d hated it when they were children, so she is stunned almost speechless when she turns from her second dance with Lord Glover to find Jon waiting with a hand extended.

She doesn’t recall if he speaks, or even what song the musicians play, she only remembers the way his hand feels resting there, low on her back, and the way his eyes seem to hold some inner flame that sends embers of heat out and along her skin. There’s a promise there, a promise that reminds her of the nights he’d panted quietly above her, of the way his breath had felt painting across her skin.

When the dance ends, he presses a hard, burning kiss to her hand before striding quickly away from her, as though afraid he will not be able to control himself further.

The feast seems to go on for an age, but they do not dance again. They do not even speak. Still, its as if they are wrapped together by a single cord, and she would swear she feels his every breath, his every step, his every shifting movement no matter how far apart they are. It drives her almost mad.

Eventually, what feels like years later, they retire together, and Jon does not look at her as he leads her up the steps to their chambers. It feels as a wedding night ought to, she realizes with a thrill, and almost stumbles she is so distracted, wondering if Jon has always been so warm, if he has always smelled so tantalizing.

Her maid awaits them, ready to help Sansa undress, her night trail already splayed out upon the bed. Sansa exchanges a brief, blistering glance with her husband and says, “Leave us.”

Sansa barely notices the look of surprise that bleeds into understanding on her maid’s face before she hurries from the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. Jon moves away then, allowing her to suck in a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, and latches the door.

There’s something about being away from Winterfell that makes her feel daring, as if she’s escaped the shrouds of her girlhood and the horrible trauma of her second marriage enough to be the woman she truly is, or at least the one she desperately wants to be.

“Will you help me to undress?” she asks in a poor attempt at causality. She realizes she must sound foolish, having just dismissed her lady’s maid, but she turns resolutely around, gathering her hair over one shoulder.

Again, she can feel the press of his eyes, can feel the weight of his steps as he approaches her. Then the feather-light brush of his fingers as he slowly, carefully undoes the laces of her gown until the span of her back is laid bare before him. She carries scars there, as well, a testament to her years of sacrifice and suffering, and she wonders if they will be all he sees. If all he will notice is all the ways she’s been torn apart and not all the ways she has stitched herself back together.

Jon shifts closer as she clutches her dress to her chest, eyes squeezing closed as she tries to calm the rapid beating of her heart, and his breath washes over sensitized skin. She is afraid, but not for the reasons she’d anticipated. No, this is a different kind of fear, made almost worse because she has no measure to guide her, no experience to lead her to him.

She is afraid because she wants him in a way she had never expected to, because she feels like she might die if he does not touch her.

Despite this, she startles a bit when he traces a single finger down the ridges of her spine and his breath stirs the hair on the back of her neck. Her knees tremble, as weak as water, but she manages to stay upright.

“Your skin,” he says in a voice she’s never heard, rough as sand on stone. “It’s like ivory.”

 _Coated in steel,_ she thinks, and gathers her courage. There is power here, and, for the first time in her life, there is a choice.

She chooses him.

Turning, she loosens her arms and lets her gown pool at her feet, leaving only her fine, nearly sheer shift and delicate stockings in its place. She catalogues his reaction as though from a great distance. The sharp inhale, the hazy heat of his eyes, the slight parting of his lips. All of it makes her blood sing, makes her long for him against her, inside her, for more than just a quick, polite coupling. He brings her sharply back to herself as he takes one small step and gathers her in his arms, his mouth hard and demanding against hers.

It’s a kiss that is nothing like the first, with it’s gentle hesitation, but it is no less sweet for it, no less world-altering. Gods, she feels as though she is drowning and somehow dying of thirst all at once. The taste of him, sweet with a hint of the ale he’d had during the feast, is better than wine, better than anything.

He braces her against one of the bed posts and instinctively she lifts her legs and wraps them about his slim waist. He hitches her thigh higher, bringing her firmly against him, and she lifts her hands to tangle in his hair, knocking the crown from his head with a jaring clatter of metal on stone that neither of them acknowledge. He drags his lips from hers, down her chin, and along the line of her throat to where her pulse leaps beneath fragile skin. His teeth nip her there and sensation bursts, drawing out a soft gasping moan of surprise as she clutches at him

Jon says her name on a groan and angles them toward the bed, his face buried in her neck, beard scraping over her collarbone as she clings to him. She feels almost out of her mind, becoming a creature driven by pure instinct. He lies her roughly down on the bed, her feet tangling heedlessly in her night dress, and he settles atop her as she chases his lips with her own. The weight of him is wonderful and all-consuming, his body a shield against the world as opposed to a terrifying prison.

He takes his time kissing her, teaching her without words how to part her lips for him and how to move her tongue with his, before he shifts to her side and slowly draws her shift up her body. She has to break away and lift her head so he can pull it free of her, and the cool evening air on her bare skin brings her back to herself a bit. Just enough to be afraid.

Jon’s pupils are blown wide as he watches her, his expression free of all pretense, and she has a sense that, despite still wearing all his clothing, he is just as defenseless as she is. This comforts her as nothing else would have, and she finds her courage again, reaching for the fastens of his tunic with hands that shake. She carefully undoes each one, the only sound the harsh melody of their combined breathing. Finally, she pushes the garment from his shoulders slowly but firmly, her eyes never leaving his as he moves to accommodate her. He helps her with his shirt as she tugs it from the waistband of his trousers, drawing it over his head and discarding it somewhere behind them.

It feels as though she is seeing him for the first time in that moment, as if they hadn’t really known each other at all, despite all the years of shared suffering and grief.

Jon lets her trace the mural of his scars, one by one; lets her feel the rapid pounding of his heart between his ribs, and lets her trace shy circles over his fair nipples before he catches her lips in another kiss. This one is smooth and warm like honey that pools low in her belly and spreads, infusing her with heat like the warmth of a summer sun.

A moment later he takes her hand and guides it between her legs, startling her, but not enough to make her pull away. She trusts him, she realizes, trusts him to show her how things might be. Together they part her damp folds and delve within. She gasps in shock and the echoes of pleasure as he presses two of her own fingers within herself. It’s warm, and soft, with a pliant sort of give, and very, very damp.

“You’re so wet,” Jon groans, as though reading her mind, and she can feel her entire body flush.

“I-Is that good?” she asks, uncertain and hyper aware of her own body. She recalls then the oil Jon had used during their couplings in the past and feels both foolish and enlightened.

“Gods yes,” Jon says as he captures her lips once more in a long, filthy kiss. He removes her fingers and replaces them with his own and she nearly comes off the bed, keening with shock and pleasure. It does not seem possible that his hand could feel so different, but as his fingers stretch within her, it’s like her entire body comes to life.

The world loses focus then, like the haze that follows drinking too much wine, but better, sweeter. His thumb presses through her folds, searching, until he brushes against something that makes her cry out and sends her spiraling toward the precipice of something new and terrifying and wonderful. His fingers pump into her as he teases that spot and she bursts apart, clinging to him as though she fears she might be swept away if he does not hold her steady.

“I- I didn’t know,” she says when she can speak, shaking her head at him, “I didn’t know it could be like that.”

Jon’s says nothing, expression darkening, and he kisses her fiercely, cupping her face between his hands. It feels like he’s telling her something, though, something tender and full of understanding. Suddenly, she recalls the way he’d looked the day they’d taken back Winterfell , the way he’d driven his fist into Ramsay’s face over, and over, and over again. He’d been filthy and wild and only she had brought him back from the edge of insanity. The memory sends a sharp flare of dark pleasure through her, even as she pushes it back.

Boldy, Sansa reaches between them, slipping her hands beneath his trousers to grasp the hard length of him. It is surprising warm and smooth and a bit of moisture leaks from the tip and smears her fingers as she slides her hand along its length. Jon’s reaction is worth any uncertainty on her part as he groans long and loud, head falling helplessly against her shoulder.

She understands in that moment what Cersei Lannister meant when she’d said a woman’s true power lies between her legs. She pushes that memory away as well; the dead had no place between them, not here, not now.

Sansa resolutely pushes him onto his back and pulls his trousers down past his thighs before straddling him. Jon looks up at her, dazed, his hands bracing her hips as they study one another in the dwindling light of the hearth fire. She holds his gaze as she presses herself slowly onto him, parting sensitive flesh, but soon she is squeezing her eyes shut to help her contain the overwhelming torrent of sensation. It feels as it did before, that sense of being filled, but it’s so much more, so much better as she slides her hands up the hard planes of his stomach and chest. 

Jon groans her name and shifts his hips to take himself deeper and all thought, all fear and worry vanishes like mist on a sunny day. She hadn’t known it could be so natural. It’s as easy as breathing as they rock together, skin meeting and parting, pleasure tightening and coiling in a way that is now familiar, until it bursts and sends them drifting toward the shore together. 

* * *

He wakes her with touch.

The press of his leg, rough with hair but firm and warm, sliding between hers. The brush of his fingers along the curve of her arm. The touch of his lips along the arch of her neck. She is still pliant with sleep when she whimpers with pleasure as his fingers dip between her legs and tease that delicious little bundle of nerves again, teasing her until she is squirming.

“Jon,” she whines, tugging sharply at his hair, eliciting a grumbling sort of laugh from him as he lifts one of her thighs over his hip. He presses his brow to hers, holding her gaze as he slips slowly and steadily inside her.

It’s different this time, not as urgent, and far more intimate as she stares into his eyes, lifting her hips to meet his.

Later, they help each other dress, laughing like children as she fumbles with his boots and she nips at his bare shoulder. As much as she misses their son, she finds herself reluctant to leave, afraid they may lose this tentative new feeling. Jon must feel similarly because he takes her on a tour of the grounds, smiling and jesting with her as they make a show of surveying the castle and complimenting their hosts on a well run household, which delays them by another day.

That night he takes his time in showing her how a man might bring a woman pleasure with only hands and mouth, teaching her the secrets of her own body before showing her the hidden parts of his own. Despite being married twice before, Jon introduces her to a world filled with wonder and joy, one she had not known existed.

He curls around her in sleep, hand thrown over her waist and legs tangling with hers. Its a pleasant feeling, being held like this, and she tries not to think of the other woman, no matter that she is half a world away, that he’s shared similar such moments with.

* * *

A raven awaits them when they arrive home. Samsa knows immediately who it is from by Jon’s expression alone, and her heart falls somewhere into the vicinity of her slippers.

He exchanges a glance with her, a stunted smile on his face, before he leaves her there in the hall.

Jon does not call for her till after supper, which he eats alone in his study. Sansa has kept busy with their son and addressing several household matters, but her mind has been almost entirely preoccupied by the vision of the letter in his hand, the forced smile on his face, and the distant look in his eyes.

He waits for her in her solar and they observe one another in the fading sunlight for a long moment before he finally speaks.

“Daenerys is getting married,” he tells her, “to Aegon Targaryen.”

Sansa blinks and shakes her head. “Aegon Targaryen is _dead_.”

Jon pulls a face. “Apparently not, through the years hardly add up in his favor, but it doesn’t really matter. If Daenerys says he is Aegon, who will argue with her?”

This is not quite the news she expected, and she might have felt relief if something else hadn’t lingered in Jon’s eyes.

Sansa wets her lips, clasping her hands tightly before her. “What is it Jon? What else has happened?”

Jon sighs and looks away, watching the sunset bloody against the trees of the Godswood. “She has asked us to come.”

Sansa draws in a breath that burns as years of torment and loneliness wash over her before she call fully suppress them. She had sworn never to set foot in the Red Keep again, but, for Jon, well...

“V-very well, when do we leave?”

“Sansa… I, well…”

Sansa goes cold, realizing her error too late. _Ah, he does not wish me to come. Of course he doesn’t… not when she is there. _

“I see,” she says at last, fingers clenching so hard they hurt. “When do _you_ leave?”

“In two days, I must hurry if I am to make it in time.”

Ice builds around her heart, but not fast enough to shield her from the pain.

“Very well.”

He must hear something of her feelings in her voice because he turns back to her with a pleading look on his face. “Sansa, please, you must understand-”

Sansa lifts a hand, hurt and anger warring within. She’s been so stupid, she realizes.

_Same stupid, ignorant Sansa. Will I never learn?_

“I understand perfectly, _Your Grace_ ,” shes says in a scathing voice that sparks a flash of anger in Jon’s eyes.

“I would spare you the pain of returning to that place, Sansa,” he says and she scoffs, bile rising in her throat.

“Do not pretend you leave me behind to spare _my_ feelings. I am not a complete idiot.” _Oh yes I am_ , she thinks.

Jon glares. “That is what you think of me? That I go to-to-”

“Fuck her, Jon,” she supplies coolly. “You go to _fuck_ her, and you’d prefer not to have your wife about while you do it.”

He seems stunned, though she imagines it is more by her crassness than anything else, and something she assumes is guilt suffuses his face. She is being cruel, and petty and she knows it but something inside her is dying, gasping it’s last breath.

“Go then,” she hisses when he makes no response, “but do not dare come to my bed again.” She turns on her heel and strides into the hall, slamming the door closed behind her. She makes it to their chambers before she starts to cry; wracking, horrible sobs that seem torn from deep within her. She hadn’t understood her feelings, the truth of her heart, until he’d taken it in hand and shattered it to pieces.

He does not come to her bed, she hardly sees him over the next two days, and then he is gone and she is alone once more.

* * *

Arya arrives a month after Jon departs, surprising them all. She shocks them further when she dismounts her horse and displays a rounded and protruding belly beneath her large tunic and loose trousers.

Gendry, at least, has the grace to appear apologetic.

“We tried to make her ride in the carriage,” the captain of their guard tells Sansa as though he fears she might have his head. “She refused and threatened to walk to Winterfell herself if we didn’t let her alone.”

“I know my sister’s temperament very well,” Sansa says with a sigh and a rueful sort of smile, patting the poor man on the arm. “I am sure you did your best.”

“You put yourself at risk, Arya,” Sansa admonishes as she hurries down the steps and into the courtyard, and her sister’s expression immediately turns sour. Sansa sweeps her into a hug, however, belaying whatever scathing retort she might have had. The ache in her breast, which had grown a little more each day since Jon’s absence, throbs sharply; she has missed her sister, no matter how infuriating.

“Congratulations,” Sansa says as she pulls away, feeling strangely teary. She glances at Gendry, who is smiling so hard she fears he may actually burst. “Congratulations to you both.”

* * *

Seeing Arya pregnant is strange indeed, not least of all because her younger sister has never displayed the existence of a single maternal instinct, but somehow it suits her all the same. Her hair has grown longer and her cheeks are perpetually rosy and full, her eyes a bit softer than they’d been before. There’s a familiar look about her, too, one Sansa recognizes from her own pregnancy; that sort of internal awareness that comes with carrying a child, that sense of some larger, greater cycle. It’s a primal sort of ritual that only women can understand and she thinks its likely the only thing they’ve ever truly shared in common.

Arya takes a telling interest in little Robb, smiling softly when she thinks no one is looking as she leads him by the hand through the garden, bending awkwardly to tell him the names of the plants and flowers. They look alike, despite the auburn tone of her son’s curls; they share the same sharp nose and the Stark gray eyes.

Sansa, on more than one occasion, wishes Jon were there to witness it, wondering what he would make of such a transformation, before, that is, she remembers and her heart grows cold.

Arya is there a week before she broaches the subject. Sansa has grown bad at concealing her emotions; has grown weak as she swore she never would again.

“You seem… sad, Sansa,” she remarks as they stroll past the stables. It’s noisy in the courtyard, boisterous, but in a pleasant way, not like during the war. Men and women smile, children laugh from somewhere behind the buttery, and there’s the faint echo of a singing from the kitchen a little beyond. She wishes it didn’t all feel so hollow to her.

Sansa ducks her head, trying to formulate a lie that might be convincing, but Arya stops her with a touch. “I am sure Jon will not betray you, Sansa.”

These words slice through her like a freshly sharpened knife. She’d forgotten how observant Arya, who’d once hardly paid anyone any attention at all, has become.

“He loves her, he has always loved her,” Sansa says, hardly meaning to. This is not something she’d ever planned to discuss, not with anyone, let alone her sister. It is her pain, her _shame_ to bear.

“You are his wife,” Arya insists stubbornly.

Sansa scoffs and it is a cruel, unfeeling sound. What does her sister know? Gendry would have burned the whole of the world down to win her hand; Arya knew nothing of a marriage such as hers. One born of duty and bitter sacrifice. “As if that matters,” she spits out, feeling like an exposed nerve.

Arya shakes her head, temper flashing. “He had to go, you know that.”

“No,” Sansa hisses, “he wanted to go. And I do not wish to discuss it.”

Arya throws her hands up and barks out a harsh laugh. “Of course you don’t, because then you’d have to actually acknowledge that you have feelings, that you _care_.”

Sansa’s eyes narrow. “You’re hardly one to lecture on expressing emotion.”

“Maybe not,” Arya says in a cold, scathing voice, “but you’re so dead set on wearing that stupid Queenly mask of yours that you’ll drive Jon away just to prove to yourself he never really cared about you in the first place.”

“You don’t know anything,” she half screams before clapping a hand to her mouth and turning away. People are staring and she hurries toward the furthest end of the courtyard.

Arya, slowed by pregnancy, takes a moment catch up, grabbing Sansa by the elbow near the entrance of the Godswood.

“Sansa, come on, I-I’m sorry, alright?” Arya says, a bit breathless, and Sansa deflates a bit, though she still refuses to turn around. "I shouldn’t push… I know it’s complicated between the two of you, I just…” she sighs, releasing Sansa's arm. “I don’t like seeing you so sad.”

Sansa gathers herself, feeling foolish for her outburst. “It’s my fault… I shouldn’t have-" she breaks off, unwilling to voice feelings that are too delicate name. "I knew he loved her. I didn’t-I _don’t_ begrudge him it, Gods know he’s earned a little happiness.”

Arya turns her gently about, her eyes shining and her hands gentle. “So have _you_ Sansa.”

The words nearly penetrate the ice and the pain and the loneliness inside her, but not quite. Not when Jon is still gone, not when she fears he may never return to her, not truly. _He never really belonged to me in the first place,_ she reminds herself.

Sansa shakes her head and brushes at dry cheeks, composing herself. “It’s alright Arya,” she says, “Jon and I… we will be alright.”

Arya doesn't look convinced, but she lets the subject drop and they return to the castle together.

That night, alone with her son in the bed next to her, Sansa finally lets the suppressed tears slip free as she curls in on herself.

 _Don’t I deserve to be loved?_ She cries out silently to Gods she doesn’t truly believe in, not anymore. _Just once?_

* * *

“For _fucks_ _sake_ , can’t we just cut the damned thing out already?!” Arya half screams as another contraction wracks her small, lithe body. The room smells of sweat, of the sharp tang of blood, and the musky scent of what Sansa can only describe as a ‘birth’ -like earth and moisture and living, bleeding things.

Sansa looks to the midwife with concern, only to find that she is smiling ruefully. She catches Sansa’s eye as Arya bears down.

“The babe is near,” the woman says brightly and Arya has murder in her eyes, “Just a few more, good pushes.”

Arya mutters something foul and loathing under her breath and snatches Sansa’s hand from the coverlet, squeezing so hard Sansa sees stars, but then the babe is out and crying and the momentary pain vanishes.

“A girl,” Sam announces as the midwife hands the squalling bundle to him.

Gendry bursts into the room at that moment, just in time to witness the messy afterbirth slide free of Arya’s womb. He promptly falls to the floor in a dead faint, shocking them all.

Arya huffs out a weary laugh and waves Sam over. “Give me my daughter and get Gendry out of the way before someone trips over him."

* * *

After the birth, Sansa helps Arya bathe, braiding her hair away from her face, and fitting her into a fresh nightgown and robe. The midwife assures everyone that the birth had gone well and shows Arya how to tie the thick cotton undergarments about her waist to help catch the remaining blood and discharge. All of which Arya takes with about as much grace as can be expected, griping over the unfair suffering of women and the general stupidity of men.

Things calm then, and Sansa helps Gendry to hold his daughter for the first time -after Sam had carefully examined the rather impressive knot on the back of his head, of course.

Gendry holds his daughter as though he has captured the moon and stars between his arms, and Sansa knows that looks, has seen it before on another man's face. It’s the same look Jon had worn when Sam set their son in his arms. Gendry looks to Arya then, coming to her side, and another, more intimate look grows on his face.

Sansa hastily excuses herself. She knows that look, too, though she’d always dismissed it as the foolish imaginings of her traitorous heart.

* * *

Three months after Robb's first name day, Jon returns at last. Despite months of preparation, she finds herself utterly out of her depth. She doesn’t know how to act, or what it is she wants of him. Mostly, she is sorry for how she behaved, wishing things might only go back to how they were before… before he’d shown her everything that had been missing from her life. They’d been comfortable, at least, and they’d shared a sort of companionship that she fears might now be utterly lost.

They wait for him in the main courtyard -Sansa, little Robb, Gendry, and Arya with little Lyarra in her arms. It reminds Sansa of the day Robert Baratheon had come and changed all their lives forever, and she has to swallow back a wave of fear. This isn’t some foreign King come to whisk them away, she reminds herself, this is Jon, and no matter who his father was, or what Southern Queen he loves, he is a Stark and he will always belong among them.

Jon rides through the gates, spotting them at once, and relief and happiness brighten his face as he quickly dismounts. _I’m not ready_ , she thinks, _I am not ready to see him again_.

She is not ready for the truth; to know from the look in his eyes what transpired in the Red Keep, that horrible place that housed all the worst of her nightmares. She is not ready to know another woman’s arms had held him...loved him.

 _Is that what this is then_? She muses, stunned, as Jon embraces Arya and grins at the fussing baby in her arms. _Is this love?_ It is a terrible and awful thing then, she thinks as he finally turns toward her, eyes growing guarded.

“My Queen,” he says, taking her gently by the arms and stooping to kiss her cheek. Their son calls out, reaching for his father, and Jon swoops him into the air, making him laugh and squeal.

Jon catches Robb in his arms, kisses his messy curls, and smiles down at her. “I am home.” 

_Are you?_ She wonders dismally. _Or have you left your heart somewhere behind you_.

* * *

He finds her later that day in the Glass Gardens.

She has many other duties she ought to be attending to, but she hasn’t been able to bear the thought of them, not yet. Let the stewards and servants sort out the returned men, let them worry about what meal the King should enjoy his first night home; Sansa had had enough, at least for one day.

“You are still angry then?” he asks by way of greeting. She’d heard him approach, boots loud across the cobblestones, but she hadn’t turned from the tomato plants she diligently tended. She’d hated to get her hands dirty as a child, she recalls; now she enjoys the simple pleasure of warm, fertile earth between her fingers and under her nails.

“No Jon,” she says, feeling suddenly weary. “I am not angry.” And it is true, she is not angry with him, only herself.

He says nothing for a long moment and his presence behind her grows, making her want to squirm, or to run, but she methodically packs and shifts the earth beneath her hands, half praying he will just leave her be. Finally he moves to her side, kneeling in the dirt, and takes her hands carefully in his. He waits for her to lift her gaze, however reluctantly, before he speaks.

“I’ve never been good with words, Sansa,” he says, “you know this better than anyone. I should have explained myself better, before I left...and I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be so… petty, so stubborn” Sansa tries to pull her hands from his but he holds her fast. She feels oddly panicky, shying away from what she sees gleaming behind his eyes. “It hurt, what you said, though I suppose it was warranted. I loved Daenerys, Sansa. A part of me always will, but that does not mean I cannot love you as well.”

Tears spring to her eyes and she ducks her head. “That is what you wish then, to love us both? To _have_ us both?”

Jon sighs, though it is hardly more than a soft exhale that warms her face, and he takes her face in both hands, though they are streaked with dirt, forcing her to look at him. She hardly cares, her heart racing to have him so near, to have him touching her again. She’d tried so hard not to think of him while he was gone, to forget the way his touch had shone bright, absolving light into the dark places of her heart. She’d lain awake on, many, many nights, lonely in their bed, recalling his taste, his scent, the feel of him inside and against her.

His eyes are pleading, almost desperate, and the ice that had begun to grow around her heart in his absence begins to thaw. “No, that is not what I wish. You are my wife, Sansa, and if I did not honor you at the first, know that I have honored you since and will do so for as long as I live.”

In almost any other man Sansa might have called this declaration little more than a prettily crafted lie, but he is right, Sansa knows better. And the truth is there, so clear, so obvious now, as it shines out from his eyes, that she isn’t sure how she missed it for so long. She nods and sobs a little, feeling foolish and terribly, terribly happy.

“Welcome home,” she says, just before he dips his head and presses his lips to hers.

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are lovely and so are you. <3


End file.
